On the evening of October 5th, WFP Logistics Officer David Allen stepped off a plane on the island of Samoa exactly one week after a powerful tsunami devastated parts of the island nation. The following is his account of the humanitarian logistics response that took place in the days and weeks following the disaster.

Shortly after Tropical Storm Ketsana hit the northern Philippines and within days of Typhoon Parma making landfall on 3 October, WFP staff were on the phone with TNT personnel discussing with TNT the transport of 200 metric tonnes (MT) of High Energy Biscuits (HEBs) to support WFP operations in the devastated island nation.

WFP teams in Somalia have been working hard these past couple of months to rehabilitate the port in - Mogadishu, Somalia. Considerable progress has been made with removing the debris left after years of conflict and by the destructive force of storms including the 2004 Tsunami.

In his second post from the field, WFP's Deputy Chief of Aviation, Philippe Martou writes to tell us about the role that he and his team played at the beginning of the week in an urgent food distribution program in the mountains east of Manila. The area was hit hard by Tropical Storm Ketsana in September and subsequent storms Parma and Lupit.

WFP's Deputy Chief of Aviation, Philippe Martou, wrote us last night about his experiences in the Philippines where WFP is providing helicopter airlift support to relief operations following Tropical Storm Ketsana and Typhoon Parma.

A second load of humanitarian relief items has touched down in Manila. A Boeing 747, chartered by the WFP Aviation unit, was loaded with 96 metric tonnes of relief items by our colleagues at the UNHRD base in Brindisi before it departed for the Philippines.